Yulex Closes Series B Financing Round Totaling $4.5 Million

    CARLSBAD, Calif., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Yulex, a materials science
 company pioneering a domestic source of natural rubber latex for
 hypoallergenic medical devices and specialty consumer products, announced
 today the completion of its Series B round of financing totaling
 $4.5 million.
     Argonaut Private Equity led the financing, providing $2.0 million in
 February 2003, the proceeds of which were used for the building of a
 commercial pilot facility for the production of Guayule-based (why-you-lee)
 natural rubber latex and expanding its plantations in Arizona and
 California.  Yulex completed construction of the pilot production facility
 in July 2003 and is currently growing guayule on several plantations
 throughout the desert southwestern United States.
     The History Channel will feature Yulex and its Guayule plantations in a
 June 9 airing of its Modern Marvels program that traces rubber's history
 and examines its role in shaping modern industrial society.
     "With the additional funds, we are expanding our infrastructure for
 product development and will focus on accelerating product life cycles for
 select medical devices," says Jeffrey A. Martin, president and chief
 executive officer of Yulex.  "Our initial product focus is on catheters,
 condoms, and medical gloves, where there has been no cost-effective
 solution to the problems of latex allergy."
     Guayule is a desert plant indigenous to the southwestern United States,
 and a new industrial crop.  Guayule-based or domestic latex is the only
 commercially available natural rubber alternative that is free of tropical
 proteins known to cause Type I latex allergy.  With the advent of latex
 barrier products, especially in the medical industry, since the emergence
 of AIDS as a public health crisis, tropical latex sensitivities and
 allergies have come to affect over 20 million people.
 
     Yulex (www.yulex.com) is materials science company focused on the
 production of a domestic source of natural rubber derived from the desert
 plant known as Guayule.  Yulex has an exclusive license to a patented
 process to produce latex and products from Guayule in cooperation with the
 U.S. Department of Agriculture.  The Company, along with industrial
 strategic partners, is currently developing technology to extract other
 specialty chemicals and biofuels from the desert plant.  Yulex, a
 privately-held company, was founded in 1997 and based in Carlsbad,
 California.
 
     For further information, please contact: Jeffrey Martin, President and
 CEO of Yulex Corporation, +1-760-476-0320, jmartin@yulex.com; or Julie
 Wright of (W)right On Communications, +1-760-735-9411,
 jwright@wrightoncomm.com .
 
 

SOURCE  Yulex Corporation